The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 54
gray hair and beard, blood-clotted eyes, huge ears and teeth,
which he had slowly shaped in jail with blood, salt sweat,
and green mold of the muddy bread cast them for food,
then placed it mutely on the monarch’s trembling knees.
The sallow youth fell back on his soft couch with fright: 785
“Take back this sorcerer’s spell, take back this evil dwarf!”
But then the unmerciful and cunning man said slowly:
“In my wild country, king, this is how war’s declared!”
The pale king sighed and raised his hands toward heaven’s dome:
“Blessèd be comfort, love and peace! We are brothers, all, 790
and all have earth for mother and the sun for father.”
But the man-murderer’s mouth broke in a mocking laugh
until the wan king felt his blood seep from his veins;
he saw the lone man slyly slink with a great ax,
a dragon with blood-clotted laugh and dark-green eyes. 795
“Go away!” he screamed. “Go where my eyes may never see you!”
and he began to sob and whine like a small child.
The harsh sea-battler’s startled heart began to throb;
he longed to take the wretched youngster in his arms
and soothe him with caresses like a good grandfather. 800
Then he recalled the dream which one night hooked his brain,
the battle-god who marshaled his great host on earth,
and laughed to think what noble rank God gave him then:
“Ah, God was right to have no trust and weigh me well.
If only I could fight with both my friends and foes, 805
join in my heart God, anti-God, both yes and no,
like that round fruit which two lips make when they are kissing!”
His mind thus juggled, but his stern unyielding will
opened the road toward freedom with no double-talk,
and so the archer mutely turned, passed through the door, 810
the marble courtyards and dark gardens, the outer gate,
and swiftly, lightly strode into the wide free air.
Rala behind him followed like a sword-sharp flame,
then seized his ruthless hand and with great anguish spoke:
“There’s no hope left for me on earth without you now . . .” 815
but her wild doe-eyes filled with tears and her voice choked.
The stars above them cast thick flames like shepherd-fires,
and Rala moved and burned on earth like a bright star,
yet she controlled her voice and calmed her pulsing heart:
“Let’s hasten to our comrades’ secret den at once; 820
messengers from the harbor may have come already.”
Quickly they passed the boisterous city streets at night;
slaves bore their weary lords in rich-wrought sedan chairs,
and others rushed ahead, waving bright-colored lanterns.
Rala glanced sideways at the archer, mute, serene, 825
who swiftly stalked the narrow lanes while his rough hands,
his crafty eyes, his lofty sea-cap, flashed with fire.
Trembling, she reached and touched those world-creating fists:
“When you were talking and the king’s bathed body paled,
your eyes brimmed full of islands and the harbors swayed, 830
and all on earth stretched out their necks to hear your words.
Even my eyes, I swear, saw in the blazing air
slim triremes with long oars set out full sail together,
and I heard camels, steeds, and swords resound on tiles.”
The lion-minded man caressed her hair and laughed: 835
“Your crisp and flaming mouth has spoken truly, Rala.
As I talked on, I also felt my full strength ebbing,
my wild mind falling to the ground, clump after clump.”
Then Rala shivered long and glanced at his dark eyes:
“Myths tell that God created all this world with words. 840
He said, ‘Let there be trees!’ At once trees sprang from earth.
‘Let there be birds!’ and birds at once flew through the air.
He grabbed a lump of mud, shouted for man to rise,
his words fell on the clod, a man and a maid rose
as though seed, in a lightning flash, had sprung to fruit. 845
All of his words plunged thus on earth and swiftly spawned.”
The sly man laughed, for he saw clearly in himself
the limits of his strength, alas, and fought with spite,
battling on earth daylong, nightlong to enlarge their scope.
It was a sweet and summery night when virtuous ladies 850
strolled on the mole and preened, dainty and prim in talk,
for Mistress Virtue sat enthroned between their thighs.
Gaiety, garden odors rose, tall date trees swayed,
and sated lords and ladies laughed by the cool river.
The sky shook like a mystic park, the river rolled 855
stars, trees, and houses toward the sea and drowned them all.
Ripe-bosomed girls sold jasmine to the new-bathed ladies
who wove them in their waved coiffures like scented stars,
but by the riverside mute mothers with dry dugs
leant over waters with their pale babes in their arms, 860
then once more plodded on, clutching their treasures tight.
Poor Rala wanted to cry out, but her throat choked,
and the sad archer felt his mind expanding swiftly
to taste new struggles and discern new kinds of pain.
“My God swells in me day by day and floods my heart,” 865
he murmured, as he brusquely wiped his brimming eyes.
Passing beyond the towered walls, they reached the fields
where a damp breeze was blowing on the wakening soil;
the early morning sky-cock rose and beat its wings
and Rala sniffed like a swift hound and led the way. 870
She double-tracked, leapt ditches, watchfully approached
a dark lone hut, then rapped upon it like a drum
and crowed three times like a night-raven with hoarse throat.
A low door opened slowly, and then a slender girl
threw herself suddenly with love in Rala’s arms. 875
Deep in the lamp’s dim light Odysseus could make out
a motley group who leapt to welcome them with joy:
poor native fellahs, dark-skinned slaves, slim blue-eyed youths,
and crisp-haired Negroes with deep brands between their brows.
They greeted Rala with great joy and told their news: 880
“At any hour now the shores will swell with ships,
last night our heralds told us all we wished to hear—
that all the islands are up in arms and sail to help us!”
Then Rala danced within her comrades’ arms and cried:
“The wind of freedom blows and swells the trees, my friends; 885
let’s dash upon the dungeons, smash the brazen doors
and place our three chiefs in the forefront of the battle!
We who have sowed the seed of hope shall reap the flame!”
All hearts caught fire and swelled with overbrimming hope
but the much-suffering man disdained such easy joys 890
and rose to place firm order in their hearts and brains:
“Comrades, I’ve voyaged long and far on sea and soul,
my eyes have seen disease, gods, ghosts, and men, and yet
in no land have I seen a more false, murderous siren
than that wind-headed, babbling, blind bitch-hound called Hope! 895
Many of my dear friends have rotted on far shores
listening to her sweet song, gazing on her fair breasts.
Ah, shut your eyes, make your mi
nds firm, don’t hear her, friends!
Joy to that desperate man who still fights on although
all shores seem bare and his mind has nor gods nor hope! 900
Mix and weigh well your sturdy brains and your desires
and with a clear gaze search the treacherous shores with care:
how many ships? from where? what is their strength in arms
and what self-interest drives them swiftly to our aid?
No ship sets sail, I think, without some hope of gain, 905
no soul sets out on earth without some sure reward.”
He spoke, his words hit home, all callow wings collapsed,
but all pressed closely round him with new-strengthened minds
and armed false cheating hope with action led by ripened thought.
The sun at length ransacked the earth, the city woke 910
as the much-suffering man approached his humble skiff
with haste, and his knees shook with his compressed desire.
Then his heart floundered like a fish and he stopped, startled:
the river rolled and boiled like thickening crimson blood
and licked with mud the holy date trees’ topmost tips 915
and swept down, overbrimming, till the hamlets gleamed
like islands on the hilltops, zoned by swirling waters.
Glittering shoals of well-fed fishes swept in streams
plundered by many long-legged storks with gaping beaks,
and hungry crimson-winged flamingoes plunged and ate. 920
The archer shook with fear to gaze on the great strength
of that dread element with its thickened fertile flood,
but thought with pride of that other element, the mind:
“I’m only a small reed on the bank of that dark god
who overflows and mounts our mother, Earth, but yet 925
on the reed’s thinnest point, on the pure flower of flesh,
all this great river like a dewdrop hangs and trembles.”
As he trudged on, and his feet sank in the cool mud
and plunged deep roots, he thought his comrades must have fled
to quiet their wretched hearts and fill their hungry bellies, 930
but when he heard fat Kentaur’s snores beat on the bank
like waves resounding hollowly in a domed cavern,
at once his captain’s heart leapt like a glad kid
and he rushed toward his loved friend to refresh his soul.
Like a white gull that flutters its long wings and drinks, 935
his vessel lightly tossed upon the sun-washed waters,
and the much-suffering man grew calm, for sails, ropes, planks
nest tightly in the heart until there’s no escaping.
Then he leapt lightly on the deck, ran toward the beast
who lay sprawled, snoring by the prow, and laughingly thrust 940
his longing hands on his friend’s hairy shoulder blades.
Broad-buttocks stretched, half-opened his sleep-swollen eyes,
as though he glimpsed a good dream hovering above his head,
then shut his eyelids tight to keep the vision trapped.
“Wake up, O triple-buttocked body, rise, dull flesh, 945
I’m not a shadowy dream! I’m hungry! Let’s build a fire!”
Then glutton’s lips spread to his ears in a wide grin,
and when he reached and grasped lean flesh and bone, he roared,
and the skiff danced and tossed to their rude manly wrestling.
From the coiled rope at the stern’s end, a pointed pate 950
poked out, and all at once its dim brain swirled and twirled
for in the light one stood and laughed who seemed to be Odysseus.
From his great joy the piper lost his wits, then screamed
and came down tumbling on the deck like a hunched hedgehog
till breathless and worn out, he seized his master’s knees, 955
while glutton grabbed the archer by his wounded head,
and plied him full of questions with wild throbbing heart.
But the much-suffering man laughed long and put them off:
“Let’s eat a bit of bread first, that’s our foremost duty,
and then, like fresh fruit for dessert, the words will come. 960
Piper, go light a fire, and you, my splayfoot friend,
tell me why our two mountain lads are not on board.”
Then Orpheus knelt to light the fire, and Kentaur spoke:
“Captain, you know quite well how when a gleaming ax
splits open a snake’s head, its body squirms and throbs; 965
that’s how we thrashed about, left orphaned on this shore.
Our mountain lads have taken wing and left no trace,
but we, your two burnt coals, have kept the smothering spark
of your far plan alive, and guarded this frail skiff.
I thought of footwork then to earn my wretched bread 970
and grabbed our wineskins and lugged water to all homes
and sang out like a nightingale in the hot streets;
and our poor piper piped at funerals and at weddings
and beat out sad or happy tunes, as fate would have it,
then hid among the feasting boards and plundered crumbs. 975
Hunger makes even the most noble man ignoble.
At evening we returned to our poor skiff, stretched out,
ate greedily, and passed the nights in talk, long talk
of distant voyages and joys and gallant deeds
until your pointed cap should gleam along the bank.” 980
He spoke, then touched and gently stroked his master’s knees,
but the unflattered mind shrank mutely in its skull:
“Both have adapted to the daily grind for food
and lick the licorice-root of sticky memory.
Those two are best who cast their yokes aside, and left.” 985
While his fond comrades set him food and spread his bed,
he stooped and wondered how to set their minds aflame,
then ate and drank in silence, sprawled on the skiff’s length
and called on sleep from waters with its freshening palms,
and sleep arose and stood beside him with its cool green fan. 990
He slept, and his wrecked body planted cornerstones,
while Granite, far away, trod on the roads until
all their black pebbles turned to gleaming sapphire stones.
With thoughts like crimson apples on a crystal stream,
his sunburnt body swiftly plunged down toward the sea 995
and an unfledged new song leapt from his haughty lips:
“O eaglet with your awkward wings and tender claws,
I know your joy now when you kick your nest away
nor bid your father goodbye nor leave a trace behind you.
It’s good to listen to your betters with meek mind 1000
and sharpen your claws silently on a great spirit;
but it’s still better, ah, dear God, to stretch your wings
while boundless hopes and roadless winds spread out before you.”
Thus Granite trudged and sang, shook his wide shoulder blades
like wings, and took deep pleasure in his savage freedom, 1005
Meanwhile his bosom friend walked southward on tanned legs,
and stanched his tears, though his lips dripped with joy and grief:
good were the lion-heart’s caresses, his harsh breath,
good his enormous shadow, good to stand beside him,
the heavy bow stretched tight, grasping the heavy oar, 1010
never to say “I’m free!” never to say “I won’t!”
never to allow yourself to judge or to ask questions,
only to follow faithfully in his steps and feel
that freedom is enslavement to one high above you,
Now that he’d gone and man’s
extended boundaries shrank 1015
once more, and earth returned again to her low stall
like a swift mare who’d lost her daring cavalier,
ahoy! let’s bind our headbands round our orphaned brows
and may that flame we stole from him keep burning, God!
Thus Rocky murmured to himself, tightening his waist, 1020
kicking the sands behind him as his eyes gazed south.
Meanwhile Odysseus woke with a great start on deck
and thought he’d dreamt of those two lads of mountain grace
as though he’d seen two date trees, or two hawks in air,
but they slid mutely from his eyes like tears, and vanished. 1025
He turned then to the two forms sunk in sleep close by,
woke them, and swiftly told them of his strange adventures:
his wounds, the dungeon, comrades of a wild new god,
and the new rage that roared now in his stormy head:
“The earth’s as wide, my lads, as man’s despairing soul!” 1030
But the thin piper made a wry face and spoke boldly:
“You’re always sprouting new arms like an octopus,
your destiny’s accursed, for the whole world can’t hold you.
We set out elsewhere once: to drink the deathless water,
but now again you long to search out devious roads 1035
as when you feigned for ten years to be sailing homeward
but plundered shores, O crafty fox, or in cool caves
lay like a god in deathless arms, your land forgotten.
We sailed for secret springs, but now our soul-guide halts
and feels for the starved workers and their sniveling brats!” 1040
But glutton touched his master’s knees with happiness:
“The mountain snows have melted, rivers have swollen their banks,
new men have plunged upon you till your mind’s a flood
that rolls through earth in a red stream filled full of seed.
These secret springs that flood you are good and holy too! 1045
I’ll also sail down your deep current like a frigate
nor, like the piper, ask you whither and why we go.
Heigh-ho! If I should live and sail a thousand years
I’ll never have time to roam around your monstrous bulk!”
The devious man rejoiced to see that Orpheus perched 1050
and boldly chirred on the lion’s mane like a small cricket,
but then with youthful strength he seized good glutton’s hand:
“I also, like a dolphin, follow the dark God’s
swift bloody stream with joy nor ask toward what or why we go!”